Thursday, March 24, 2005

Matilda's idea of a good time on spring break is coming to work with me and filing stacks of papers. The only thing more fun is three-hole-punching them and placing them in binders.

This immediately makes her everyone's favorite. She takes big, ugly stacks of paper and makes them go away, and she always manages to do it right. I don't know why she finds this fun. Maybe she's keen on having finally discovered a practical use for the alphabet. Or maybe, judging from the state of her bedroom, she's suffering an organizational deficit that only filing can fill. Perhaps she's a case of OCD just waiting for the chance to bloom.

Yesterday I think she was a little bummed because she barely had any chance to dig in on the filing before Mommy dragged her along to a photoshoot. She got to do some amateur modeling. She got to hand out freebies and collect photo release forms. She had several middle-aged women fall in love with her and ask if they could take her home. I would have considered that a good day. But it wasn't until we returned to the office to find a looming stack of filing waiting for us that she really got excited.

I can only hope she still holds this task in such high regard when her college friends invite her to Florida. I want to believe my daughter will say to them, "Are you freaking kidding me? What are you going to do down there, lay by a pool and flirt with boys? Drink, vomit, and flash your titties? Whatever. I'm going to file some shit, baby. Yeah!"